


Given Enough Time, We will Find Each Other Again

by AjanisApprentice



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Ships are vague intentionally, but if you're looking you might see a few
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 09:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19438534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AjanisApprentice/pseuds/AjanisApprentice
Summary: It takes a while, an entire lifetime, but the group is finally reunited.





	Given Enough Time, We will Find Each Other Again

Technically the first one there isn’t even him. After all, Shinjiro had been killed before he gave himself up.

Minato sees his Senpai waiting for him at the door, still dressed in that maroon pea-coat and wearing that beanie that Akihiko loved to call dumb. His Senpai still has the perpetual look of moroseness on his face, though Minato doesn’t think he imagines seeing Shinjiro’s face brighten ever so slightly when he looks up and sees him. (Of course not over the fact that he’s dead. Just simply over the fact that he isn’t alone here anymore.)

“So, you really did it.” It’s very much like Shinjiro, not really a question, more of a statement. Still, Minato finds himself responding.

“It was the only way.”

“Tch, true.” Shinjiro sits down by the door and tilts his head, indicating that Minato should sit next to him. “Sometimes that’s just the way it is. We don’t get to choose. It’s shitty, but it’s real.”

Minato nods in response as he lays down next to his Senpai. The two are silent, though Minato has no idea how long for. Time doesn’t seem to have meaning here, though that makes sense. It isn’t exactly the physical world after all.

“The others’ll get here eventually.” Shinjiro says abruptly, causing Minato to look up at him from his laid back position. “Just a matter of waiting.”

Minato nods, aware that neither of the two have any idea when it will happen, just that it will happen eventually. No one lives forever after all. Of course, neither he nor his sempai are actively hoping any of their friends will join them anytime soon. They can wait.

* * *

Koromaru is thankfully the first to appear. After all, he is a dog, and he wasn’t exactly a puppy when SEES found him. Barring something terrible happening to one of the others, he was always going to end up being the next one up here.

His death is one of the easiest, all things considered. He’s old and lived a long life, full of helping others and bringing people joy. Minato and Shinjiro watch as the rest of SEES gathers around him as he slips into his final rest.

His arrival is met with a genuine smile from Shinjiro, to which Minato smirks. Koromaru rushes up to meet them, eagerly licking their faces and wagging his tail. 

“They’ve been feeding you alright, right?” Koromaru barks an affirmative in response to Shinjiro’s query and Minato can’t help the smile on his face stretch even further when he realizes that somehow, up here, he can understand Koromaru, at least in a similar vein to how Aigis seemed to be able to do so.

Shinjiro seems to tear up a little when he comes to the same realization.

* * *

Akihiko ends up there next. The white-haired man comes wearing his police vest and a button down shirt, both open revealing his chest bearing plenty of scars (and what that says about the nature of this place is a whole can of worms Minato doesn’t want to even think about), including one that looks quite like a bullet wound. Which of course makes sense, considering he was shot in the line of duty. He looks at the two of them with a bit of surprise, before smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry. I dodged left when I should have ducked to the right.”

(It's so very very Akihiko that Minato has to do his best to not outright laugh.)

Shinjiro immediately runs right up to him and punches him straight in the jaw, before grabbing Akihiko in a hug.

“Damn idiot. Always playing hero,” he mutters, but as Minato comes closer he can see there’s a small smile on his face. 

At which point Koromaru jumps right up to Akihiko, who deftly catches him, and begins licking his face.

* * *

Aigis shows up next, a surprise to no one but herself. Her death is heart-wrenching, but apt to her name. On a Shadow Operative mission gone wrong, Aigis jumped to shield the rest of her party.

There wasn’t enough left to put her back together. There was even less of her foe.

When she appears, Aigis is at a loss for words. Minato smiles sadly as he walks up to her, Koromaru keeping pace with him. 

“Hey Aigis.” His voice seems to snap her out of whatever daze she’s in and she stares at him for a good minute before looking down to see Koromaru wagging his tail and panting happily, and then past both to see Shinjiro and Akihiko behind them, chatting about some inane thing or another. 

“I… I don’t understand,” she says and her voice sounds so hesitant and unsure that Minato can’t keep himself from pulling her into a soft hug.

“You’ve been able to use a Persona and even inherited my Wild Card,” Minato tells her as he begins to lead her to their Senpai, Koromaru trotting along right next to them. “You have just as much of a soul as the rest of us.”

Minato is relatively sure this is the first time he’s ever seen Aigis cry.

* * *

Ken is the next one here, though the amount of ‘time’ the group up here felt waiting did not do the man justice. (And yes, he is a man, regardless of how strange that seems to Minato.)

Ken died just like Koromaru; surrounded by loving friends and family as he drifted off into his final sleep. As he finds himself in front of the door, Shinjiro and Akihiko stop their most recent squabble (Minato stopped trying to figure out their arguments while the two were still alive; there was no way he’d start trying again when they were all dead) as they hear Koromaru bark gleefully. 

Ken leans down and pets Koromaru as the dog runs up and licks his face, but he does so in a surreal way, like he can’t believe what’s going on in front of him.

“Well, it seems like you took my advice kid.” Ken looks up and somehow looks even more shocked than before as he stares up at Shinjiro. For a moment he’s completely still before he gets up and claps his hands together, bending down into a bow.

“Senpai I- I’m so sorry! God, I’m so sorry, I don’t even-”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry over kid.” Ken stops speaking at this and looks up at Shinjro and Minato can see tears spilling down his face over a shocked expression. “You took my advice and decided to live. Decided to grow. Heh, if you ever needed to apologize, which you didn’t, that was the best apology you could give me.”

At this Ken breaks down all over again and Shinjiro catches him in his arms as he leads Ken to the rest of them. And when Ken finally calms down, he tells the rest about the family he created.

* * *

Fuuka appears next. Out of everyone she appeared to have lived the busiest life, sans Mitsuru. Developing new computer programs, doing her best to further advance technology and working alongside the new Kirijo group led by Mitsuru, Fuuka ended up living her life to the fullest.

She passes away with Natsuki next to her, holding onto her hand as she slips into the next world.

Only to be bowled over by the mass of white fluff that is Koromaru, licking her all over as she laughs.

“Koro-chan I’m happy to see you too, but your tickling me!”

Eventually Koromaru backs off as Minato arrives and helps her up. As he gives her a brief hug he comments, “Did you ever get better at cooking?”

It’s truly a mark of how much she has grown when Fuuka cheekily responds “Yes, but I don’t think I’m ever going to get the chance to prove it to you.”

Minato smiles as he escorts her to the others. “That’s fine. With my luck I’d probably get food poisoning somehow anyway.”

(Minato gets a playful slap for that, which he admits he deserves.)

* * *

Junpei is up next. His death isn’t easy, as he’s wracked by both the sicknesses and sadnesses old age tends to provide.

(Chidori had passed away before he had, though she never appeared here by the door. Minato once again finds himself wondering what that says about the nature of this place.)

Junpei appears gasping and struggling for air, his mind not realizing he no longer has the body of a man in his eighties plagued by illnesses. He looks around wildly, before slowly calming down, confusion replacing the pain and fear.

“Where-”

“With the rest of us,” Minato answers his friend, having walked up to Junpei while the man had still been freaking out. Minato smirks at Junpei’s wide-eyed expression. “Should have figured you’d be one of the last ones up here. You were never early for anything, were you?”

“Hey, I was early for my wedding!” Junpei’s miffed expression causes Minato to laugh heartily, and Junpei quickly falls back into a smile, before grabbing Minato into a bone crushing hug.

“I missed you man.” Junpei’s voice is thick with tears and Minato can’t help but begin shedding plenty as well.

“I know.”

* * *

Mitsuru is next. Honestly, Akihiko had been torn between it happening far sooner, from the amount of stress the woman put on herself, and it never happening at all, considering just how much Mitsuru was capable of dealing with.

Mitsuru dies leaving behind her company in good capable hands. She has no regrets, finally feeling she had done enough to correct her grandfather’s mistakes.

Well, almost no regrets.

The second she sees Akihiko and Minato she runs up to them and slaps them both across their faces. “You’re lucky wherever we are I can’t seem to ‘execute’ the two of you for your insolence,” she chastises them, though her words hold no venom or cold. 

Minato smiles sadly as he pulls Misturu in for a hug. “I’m sorry I left so early, but you know I didn’t really have any other options.”

“I know,” Mitsuru responds, being held close by Minato for a moment before moving back to pull Akihiko into a hug of his own. “I missed you so much.”

Akihiko nods as he holds Mitsuru tight. “I know. But I wasn’t going to let people die if I could help it.”

“Always playing the hero the two of you,” the, up-till-recently, Kirijo group head says between soft sobs.

“I said the same thing you know.” Shinjiro’s comment does get her to laugh.

* * *

Yukari is the final one to arrive. (In a way Minato finds it fitting that the first member of SEES he ever met was the last one he would end up meeting here.)

She isn’t exactly alone; she has some extended family from her mother’s second marriage as well as some very close friends she made throughout her life, but she has no immediate family with her when she passes away.

Minato feels an odd guilt over old torches carried for far too long.

When Yukari gets to the door, Mitsuru, Fuuka and Aigis all rush up to her first and pull her into a tight hug. Minato can hear them laughing and crying and he holds back from getting any closer. It’s partially so he doesn’t interrupt this moment.

And partially out of fear.

Of course, he eventually has to face her. And after she hugs Shinjiro and Akihiko, ruffles Ken’s hair (despite the fact that he’s taller than her by a decent amount), gets licked by Koromaru and trades playful barbs with Junpei (which the two end up finishing by hugging and breaking down into their own tears and laughter), he finds himself face to face with her.

A bit of him is surprised she never got taller than him.

The two stare at each other for a moment before Yukari pulls him into the deepest hug he’s had so far, crying into the crook of his neck.

“I missed you so much,” she says and he knows just how true that is.

She only tried dating for a year before she never did so again and she never got married after all.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly and Yukari shakes her head.

“I’m the one who should apologize. I never did move on like you wanted. Not completely anyway.” 

Minato smiles softly as he gently pushes her back a little so he can dry her tears. “Perhaps. But you did live your life to the fullest.”

At this Yukari smiles. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

* * *

They spend a while simply talking. There is no good way to discern how long they do so, and really, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they’re back together.

And when a light in the distance beckons them all (and a small blue butterfly floats by Minato’s field of view somehow letting him know he’s done his part), they all move forward together.

This time they won’t be separated again.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came to me after reading this comic right here:  
> https://sup-poki.tumblr.com/post/178537970351/i-drew-these-late-at-night-so-some-parts-doesnt
> 
> Like I mentioned in the tags, I purposely left any ships vague (well, aside from Chidori and Junpei, but that's practically canon anyway). After all, the main point wasn't any one particular bond, but the group as a whole. That being said, I left hints all over, so feel free to read into it as much as you wish. 
> 
> Feel free to ask if you want any specifics on Headcanons I have for the characters.


End file.
